Ad Undas
by Clar the Pirate
Summary: Lat. 'to the waves'. Rapunzel, with pirates.
1. Part One

_For Faylinn._

* * *

**i. Meeting**

"Laurel is a girl's name," was the first thing Jack said. It was the first thing he had thought, and while not the most tactful thing to say to a nine-year-old boy with sandy blonde curls and long eyelashes, on his first day in a new place and looking a damn sight uneasy about it, to Jack's mind it was a perfectly reasonable. Laurel _was _a girl's name.

Laurel solved the social gaffe by punching Jack in the mouth.

"'Tisn't a girl's name," Laurel informed him, sucking on his knuckle where it had split against a tooth. "It's the name of my father and my father's father, and once crowned the forehead of a god – a _boy_ god – so how do you like that, Jack Common-as-Beans?"

"I'll call you Laurie; it's not so bad," decided Jack."You don't punch like a girl though your aim's off, so I s'pose we can be friends."

"You're off to malign my aim but you can take a punch, so _I_ s'pose we can be friends."

They shook hands.

---

**ii. Heavy Matters**

"Begad, it's heavier than a prince!"

"What would you know about princes, you lying dog?"

"Calling me a liar? I'll shave your belly with a–"

"Look smart, Laurie! You're letting your end down!"

"I'm letting no end down – You keep your end up! That was nearly on my foot, you scurvy curr."

"Quit yelling, yob-head; there's nothing to yell about."

"Aye so there is! You don't believe I met a prince."

"I never said that. You never said you'd met one so I _could_ say that."

"So now I can't _talk_ properly?"

"_What_?"

"What!"

"Laurie, you're making no sense."

"Great Poseidon in a hand-me-down neckerchief, Jackie! Did you or did you not think I couldn't know a prince when clear as day I rescued one from having been washed up on the strand. And did I or did I not have to drag him all the way back out to the receding tide much to my poor arms' great distress?"

"You dragged a ship-wreaked prince _back out_ into the sea? You're a rum nutter, is what you are."

"Jackie, it's best to keep hidden your want of brains, or they may throw you overboard in despair, and well ready am I for a change of companionship. It was a selkie prince, wasn't it? With a crown of kelp-bubbles, and eyes changeable as his kingdom. And from his own hand, I received a token of his regard and it is the best thing I own."

"What did he give you? If you actually met a selkie, where's your token?"

"I'll not be showing a soul 'til I have a need. 'Tis private and private it shall remain."

"Ha, a pretty evasion. I'll admit you can spin a tale, but you can't make me believe that a person can just turn a corner and come face to face with a selkie or a witch."

"Well, of course you won't meet a witch; they don't like water much, do they? And here we are surrounded by it."

"Always have an answer for everything, don't you, Laurie?"

"Surely do – sharp to starboard. Captain's coming."

---

**iii.** **Out of the Deep have I Called Unto Thee**

Jack woke in the middle of the night. He felt the tension of the day's work across his shoulders and down his arms. His hands were solid aches, with a special throbbing agony that had been his little finger before Laurie had stomped on it. Laurie said it was an accident, what with there not being much room in a crow's nest particularly when a body decided to sit itself down with its fingers all scattered about. And Jack had forgiven him, not because the brat had grinned that grin of his but because Jack's hand was too crippled to consider beating him into a pulp. And the fact that incapacitating Laurie would have meant more work for him in the end. Exhaustion curled its fingers around his eyeballs.

And yet he was wide awake.

An oval of pearly moonlight shone through the porthole above where they had strung up their hammock, but it fell on Laurie's face not his. Sleep made the brat a subject suitable for a chapel triptych, innocent and serene. The rest of the narrow passage between the captain's cabin and the crew's quarters was dark and quiet, save the creak of timber and weak slaps of waves that Jack hardly heard anymore. Probably one of the guns had shifted with a crunch to the slight listing of the ship in calm waters. Satisfied, Jack settled back in the hammock, nudging Laurie out of the way with a judicial knee. And then he heard it. Or heard it again.

A girl singing.

The song was sweet and enchanting, harmonious and captivating. It was the song of the sea, of the deep, of all that had pulled on the hearts of sailors to lead them to their ships and to the high waves of the sea. It was the song of everything Jack loved, everything he cared for, his own personal freedom in a wave of high, clear notes.

And as suddenly as it started, it stopped again before Jack could haul himself up to the porthole to spy the singer.

---

**iv.****Swashbuckling**

"Avast, ye yellow-bellied usurer! Never a soul has drawn blood from me, and never will they neither!"

Knocking Laurie's encroaching sword out of the way of his stomach with an absentminded flick, Jack tried to remember the _Islington_'s course over the past week. They should be somewhere near Saint Croix.

"Ha-ha, yes! And ye'll be thinkin' it's a wonder I can run that fast, and for _that_, ye sorry swabbie, I'll make ye pay a scarlet ocean of blood!"

Perhaps there was a local bird about, or a very tuneful seagull.

"I almost had ye there, ye scurvy-infested parrot! Why, I once was owning a dog with twice the brains as ye have in yer little finger."

A whale? They sang, didn't they?

"Wake-up, man! Yer supposed to say: Aye, and he must have taught you everything you know."

Or maybe he was simply going mad.

"Jackie, how am I meant to become the most feared pirate of all the known seas if you won't help me learn how to use this cursed thing? Oi, _Jackie_!"

Jack was knocked from his contemplation by a wooden sword to the side of the head. It wasn't often he lost his temper, but unsettled by confusion and lack of sleep, being assaulted by a lad barely half his side was the proverbial straw to Jack's camel.

Battering the sword from Laurie's hand with one swipe, he backed the smaller boy up against the wheelhouse and threw a quick right into his gut. Laurie doubled over and Jack was suddenly stuck by his smallness and the temptation to bring his knee up into the other boy's face, and while he stood undecided Laurie slammed into his legs and for a wild minute it was all teeth snapping together and hair in fists and the sky spinning flat and blue.

Getting one hand around Laurie's neck, Jack pinned him to the deck and snarled, "Don't touch me, you grimy little guttersnipe; next time I'll kill you."

Of course, he had forgotten Laurie's left hook.

Laurie stood, one hand cradling his throat, and kicked Jack in the ribs before disappearing below deck.

---

**v. Apologies**

"I'm sorry, Laurie."

"For what, my lord?"

"Don't, Laurie; I feel bad enough." He watched a minute as Laurie fought to bandage his own hand. "Give over, sap-skull, you're making a mull of it."

After a vicious tussle, Jack gained command of Laurie's hand, tugged off the cloth strip, tutted like a mother hen, and set about cleaning the graze.

"Look, you left a splinter in. What were you going to do? Wait 'til you got gangrene and let the sawbones take it out and your hand with it?"

Laurie snatched the damned appendage back. "What the hell do you care, my lord?"

"Stow it, Laurie."

"No, I'll not stow it, if and it please you. I don't want you touching me, I don't want you near me."

"I'm sorry, Laurie, really sorry. I didn't mean to – I don't know why I did it but it's done and I can't do a thing except bandage you up properly, so give over."

Jack was reluctantly allowed to continue his work, and when it was finally done to his satisfaction he said quietly, "I _am_ sorry for hitting you, Laurie."

". . . and?"

"And?"

"Aye, 'and' – you don't even remember what you said," Laurie accused, chewing his little fingernail with a vengeance, then sniffed.

"I wasn't born in a gutter." His bottom lip pouting and eyelashes spiked with tears, the ten-year-old looked all of about six. "I was born twenty miles south of Castle Clare; to emerald fields and blue skies, not some dirty grey slum. And your da may be some stupid rich merchant but on this ship, out _here_ in the sun and the ocean and the moon and stars and the whole _world_ around us it doesn't make a damn difference. Only excepting it does because you're going to be a captain one day – don't say something stupid, you will – and I don't have the money, I don't, so you don't stomp all over me now for you'll be doing so soon enough anyway."

"Laurie..."

"It's true; don't naysay it for it will only make you a liar."

"So, get a skill. Make yourself indispensible and no one will stomp on you for fear of losing you."

Jack watched a slow, small grin creep onto Laurie's face.

'I do like the sound of that."

---

**vi. Met by Moonlight**

Almost before the voice began singing, Jack was on deck. The sails hung quietly expectant of the wind, like white paper waits for a story. Slack lines spun lazily to the lullaby-rock of the ship at anchor. The stars were bright and the moon was very, very close.

And the song. The song was a sweet sleepy thing too, barely perceptible amongst the night sounds of the open sea, but persistent: a voice that tugged at dreams. Slip into silent slumber, it sang, sleep the slow sleep of sea and salt and starlight. Wile away with the wind the wide, wonderful night, it whispered, while others wander in their worried, wearisome minds. The pacific Pacific sighed with the song of the singer.

A yearning, wide and wonderful, pulled Jack to the railings. He breathed deeply the air and the sky. On the water, the moon dabbled a long portrait of its face, gold as new-minted princess hair.

_Jump_.

Jack frowned at the discordant note. Jump? Well, yes, it was a nice night for a swim, he should go wake Laurie.

The song stopped. A fresh breeze Jack hadn't noticed caught and pulled at the lines, pushed a bucket clattering across the deck. The moonlight gleamed silver on the water which was no longer so inviting. Chafing his arms against the chill, Jack slipped back below deck.

---

**vii. Powder Monkey**

"You will take off one of your eyebrows, or a finger – I'm hoping it'll be your nose, give you a bit of character, stop you looking so rum pretty."

"Your jealous words cannot touch me, Jackie." Laurie didn't take his eyes off the stream of gunpowder he was pouring down a cannon's snout. Done, he frowned in contemplation then shrugged and tamped the stuff down. "And don't you have some scrubbing that needs doing? Leave the real work to the real men, Jackie-boy."

"What was that, Laurie? I'm trying but all I can hear is the sound of you setting your own pants on fire. Really distracting, it is."

"Now, Jackie, you keep throwing that instance back in my face as if it were something to be ashamed of. If I didn't make a sacrifice to the gun-peskies how was I to become the greatest powder monkey that ever did live? Tell me that."

Rather than scoff and start their normal, comfortable argument, Jack looked out over the sea, and ventured to ask, "Laurie, what do you call it when the sea sings?"

"Eh?" Laurie gave him a look laced in suspicion. "You call it cabin fever finally getting to you."

Jack frowned, bit at his thumbnail, realised what he was doing, scowled at Laurie for infecting him with the dirty habit, and sighed.

"What song?" the smaller boy asked.

"A song of love and desire and the sea and, you know, other things. Freedom."

There was a small, heavy pause.

"Did I ever tell you about my selkie prince, Jackie? He sang a similar same song, only his freedom was protection. But you see, it's not real, Jackie; songs are just pretty sounds. So you save their lives but you don't consent to be their wife."

"Hold wait, he asked you to be his wife?"

The boy blushed painfully red. "Stow it, Ashbury. My hair was longer then." His voice lowered a full octave in embarrassment. "You do see what I'm saying though, right, Jackie?"

"No. Save your cypticness and dire predictions, and tell me what I want to know before I haul you upside down and shake it out of you."

"A siren. When the sea sings of love and desire and freedom, then you call it a siren."

* * *

_I had two co-writers for this first part, the incomparable sliphod and (unbeknownst to her) FaylinnNorse. Now everyone go read _The Compass Rose_ and leave lovely reviews so Fay will start writing it again._


	2. Part Two

**viii. Man Overboard**

Months passed. Months of nights entwined with whispers of music, and sometimes Jack woke and sometimes he didn't, and no matter where he slept the songs found him and slipped their subtle fingers deeper into his consciousness.

This night, it was so late that the hours became early again and the sea was molten dark in anticipation of the dawn. Fine tendrils of music bridled the waves off the _Islington_'s starboard bow, reined them in to form a restless bower cradling smooth white limbs. As the sun's first offensive lit the horizon with red fire, Jack opened his eyes to find himself on deck with _Lorelai_ dissolving sweetly on his tongue, a name he knew without thinking was hers.

In the first moment he thought it was a girl, but he had seen girls in the water and knew it turned their hair dark and heavy and indefinite, and as she tilted upward her hair flung out and folded in waves behind and above and around her and the light was trapped inside it, snapping rolling sliding golden all along the surface of the water.

Her eyes were pearl, iridescent. He stared, and the colours of the rising sun and the sinking sea stared back at him.

_She has more hair than she needs_, he thought, knocking his knee against the rail as he slid up and over. But it was so golden that it didn't matter and he would teach her to pin it with ivory combs so that it didn't tangle and twine around them. But _no_, yes, he would be wrapped in radiance floating skywater darkness, a thousand tendrils of light stretching into the ocean black.

He paused, poised, each muscle posed in the first movement of a dive. And then a searing heat on his arm as the sun broke the sky and the sea with blazing daylight.

"Jackie! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Lorelai," Jack whispered, falling, and the sea shrieked with victory.

With strength made of panic, Laurie hugged him round the waist and hauled him in an awkward tangle of arms and legs back over the rail. Pinning Jack to the deck with one foot on his sleeve, Laurie glared over the side of the ship and they two measured each other for a long moment. With a slow, fluid flick of her golden hair, Lorelai dived beneath the surface.

Jack opened his eyes a second time and woke truly to find Laurie half on top of him, clumsily chafing his hand. He could not feel his fingers or his legs below the knees and his lungs shivered air out between his chattering teeth but Laurie was warmth, deep heart-warmth, a well of inner sureness despite the outward bluster.

"You don't ever, _ever _do that again, Jackie. _Ever_. I mean it. I'll nail you to the mast if I have to but you don't ever scare me like that again, do you hear? Can you hear me, Jackie?"

"Her hair, Laurie."

"_What?_"

"Like a net cast to catch the stars in their glory, and eyes like twin moons, and the rising sun..."

"Please, Jackie, _please_ start making sense."

"I thought her voice was beautiful but Laurie did you see her? Where's she gone, why didn't she stay?"

"Jackie. Jackie, come back to bed; sleep it off and you'll recognise the nonsense you're spinning."

"No," he said, shrugging the younger boy off. "I'll stay here. For when she comes back. I won't leave, I'll wait here. Stop pulling at me, you pestering lynch-bait!"

Laurie smacked him upside of the head. "I'll pull where I please and you'll be thankful for it. Only a fool like you, Jackie-boy, could fall for a mermaid."

"Fall? In _love_?"

"That's not what I said," Laurie replied with deep, dark eyes, "but since you mention it; aye, so I fear."

"I'm not!"

"I hope that's true. I hope with all the strength of my heart that may be true."

---

**ix. Love**

_Wanting to be with Lorelai right now._

_Wanting always to be with Lorelai forever._

_Rapid heartbeat when near her._

_Clammy hands and irregular breathing._

_Desperate when I don't see her_

"The procreation of children."

Jack snatched up his list, spilled the bottle of ink over his only pair of clean trousers, and glared at Laurie. "What?"

The boy barely glanced at him as he cleaned gunpowder out from under his fingernails. "'Tis what most couples in love are wont to be doing, populating the planet with lots of little bubbies."

"I will not let your gutter-mind debase the love I feel for Lorelai."

"Aye, I couldn't stand the thought of rogering a fish either. It'd be all cold and slimy, I reckon..."

"Laurie, shut your face or I will stove it in."

"And who even knows if she'd have the right parts for the business. Have you made a study of aquatical anatomy?"

"Take that back, sir."

"What? _Sir_? Of all the days to be without a pair of gloves, is that it, my lord?"

"Don't call me that; I don't even know what you mean."

"You pretend well for a boy born with a silver spoon up his arse, but blood will out in the end." With insolent precision, Laurie spat an inch to the left of Jack's boot. "I'm a peasant, Jackie; I don't fight duels over a lady's honour – particularly when the female in question's only half lady."

"You are being deliberately insulting, and I won't –"

"Aye, Jackie, I am; for I'll tell you what I know of love. You don't let a person you love merrily trot along the path to being murdered without trying to knock some bloody sense into his head."

"I am not about to be murdered!"

"It's what they do, Jackie. Mermaids, sirens, whatever you wish to call them, they drown unsuspecting seamen. That is what they _do_."

"If you're quite done, Laurie?"

"Far from it, but you're in no fit state to listen to what needs saying. And don't come near me until you've settled yourself down, for I do know how you like to beat on those smaller than you when your _love_'s got you in her grasp."

---

**x. Casus Belli**

They had found an uneasy truce and so long as neither mentioned music, babies, or golden hair twisted with sea tides it held. The _Islington_ was somewhere, to Jack's knowledge, north-east of Madagascar, having docked to offload a shipment of stationary and fill up with gunpowder the day before yesterday. The region was a maze of strange little islands no one had ever named, and the sight of more land was so novel after months of sky and sea that Jack and Laurie found nothing better to do that watch them once the ship had anchored.

"I'd call that one Casus Belli," said Jack, pointing a thumb at an island encircling a lagoon with unnaturally sheer rock faces closing the mouth to a narrow channel.

"I don't see much of a pretty castle about it."

"No, it means 'declaration of war'."

Laurie's eyes lit with speculation. "A couple of cannons either side of the mouth, you'd have complete say over who comes in and out. Fort on the hill, more cannons–"

"Always the cannons with you, Master P."

"Don't make me hit you, Mr Ashbury; I'm sure I can still find a bone of yours I haven't broken."

"That would be all of them except my little finger and that was more of a bad sprain really."

"Merely making yourself a larger target, Jackie."

They examined the island again in companionable silence.

"And plenty of water."

"Oh, aye, and plenty of water if you happen to be a fish."

"Exactly."

"Jackie..."

"Forget I mentioned it, Laurie; I won't get into another fight with you."

"But Jackie, you can't–"

"Alright, Master Bluestocking, you're so clever, tell me this. I read my _Odyssey_, if Lorelai's a siren how come she hasn't enchanted you too? The whole crew for that matter?"

An unexpected silence met his words. Jack glanced at Laurie and saw the boy had frozen.

"What, Laurie, no clever answer for the first time in your life?"

"She must be a young one – so she doesn't have any power over grown men and besides they're always below deck with the wood as a barrier so they can't hear so well."

"But what about you, Laurie? You've been right next to me. You're younger and more susceptible to fancy than me. You believed in fey before you even heard her."

"Well, she can only do one person at a time. And I don't like music!"

"What, Laurie, yes you do. You're Irish."

"Jackie," Laurie took his hand between his own, a hot, anxious gesture. "You've got to believe me, Jackie. This isn't love you're feeling – it's just bewitchment. Why won't you believe me? Have I ever lied to your knowing?"

"The goat on Farquhar."

"About _important _things, Jackie. Trust me. A week, a month without her fogging your brain with her caterwauling and you'll be right as a trivet in a new gunwale."

"No, Laurie, I love her."

The ship drifted sideways from its anchor into the long shadow of the cliffs of Casus Belli.

"Fine, if you won't be helping yourself then help must come from other quarters."

"What does that mean?"

"Never you mind, Jackie, you'll only strain yourself."

---

**xi. Diplomacy**

Said Laurie to Lorelai, "Look, it's nothing personal, except that it is. Personal."

_You did your task well_, sang Lorelai to Laurie. _I cannot get out_.

"Thanks. I had help."

_But not from my John._

Laurie considered for a moment throttling the girl-fish, instead nibbled viciously at a thumb, tasting gunpowder. "Listen, I'm not sure what type of water-witchery you've got but don't be sending any of it after me for I'm doing this for all of our sakes. And I've still the possession of something one of your kin desires; he'll stand by me yet."

Lorelai blinked slowly. _That is very interesting_.

"So you won't witch me?"

_So long as I am trapped here, I am powerless_.

"That's not what I asked."

_It is what you will receive._

"Now, now, there's no call for being ominous."

* * *

_Only took me five months... But you should never have to wait that long again; the next part is written, I just want to have the fourth part done before I post the third because it would be too mean a place to be left hanging. All told, this story will be seven parts long, I hope, it started out as three._

_Thanks to sliphod, atoll-seeker and hair-dresser._


	3. Part Three

_There are some of my readers who are not going to be comfortable with events in this chapter and it is for you I held off so I could post the next one at the same time. There is a debate to be had, no doubt, and you can probably guess which side I'll be on, but this story is not meant as an instigation._

* * *

**xii. The Stars**

The _Islington _was at anchor, anchored to pass a silent, natural night as it had for two months. Stars blazed overhead; the moon had not yet risen and they had no competition. Jack thought of Lorelai's hair, then wrenched his thoughts away and pointed.

"There, see, those seven are the Pleiadeas. One, two, three, four, five, six, and the seventh is that dim one there. Her name's Merope; she fell in love with a mortal and was shamed for all eternity so does not burn as brightly as her sisters."

Laurie wriggled over to stick his cheek right next to Jack's. They were lying on deck star-spotting. Jack could feel Laurie's face scrunch into a squint and a scowl.

"This is more pointless than boots for fish, Jackie. How's a person s'posed to pick just seven when the sky's awash with the things?"

"I'd have thought pictures and fates and mythic creatures in the stars would be right up your alley."

Laurie turned his head sideways so they were almost eyeball to eyeball and gave him a look.

"Right up your country lane then. You're a touchy little fellow, aren't you, Laurie?"

"Just you keep on with your lecture, Jackie, before I remember better uses for my time."

"Namely?"

"Teaching you to better defend your right side."

Jack laughed. "I'm sure I'd take you up on the offer but we're docking tomorrow and I must look my best for the ladies."

"You'll never be the pretty one between us, Jackie, but I wish you all the best. Now tell me 'bout these sisters you're so certain are up there."

"They were the daughters of Atlas, and Zeus turned them to stars after Atlas was made to carry the world on his shoulders because Orion started–"

"Hey, I know that one!" Air burst out of Jack's lungs as the brat launched himself across his chest to point at the south-west horizon. "There, three stars for Orion's belt."

Laurie grinned down at him. "Do you know, Jackie, Malcolm says that if you sail far enough across the equator the entire sky turns upside down and all the stars have different names? And they call Orion the Saucepan. What do you make of that and all, Jackie? The greatest hunter in the sky remade as a tin pot? We'll go see it one day."

"You'll go, and I won't be able to stop you telling me all about it even if I tried so I suppose I should resign myself to the boredom now."

"No. I'll not be going without you, Jackie."

"You'll have to. I'm staying here."

"What, here on the forecastle? Here on the _Islington_? Here on the precise spot of ocean when you said it, for I'm a-feared to tell you that ship's already sailed as it were."

"Here in the Indian Ocean, Laurie."

"Oh, aye, 'til your father calls you home to London to learn the family holding."

"No, Laurie. My father has enough ships on these routes that I can stay out here indefinitely, perfectly legitimately."

"What madness is this?"

"I won't leave without her."

"_No_, Jackie."

"_Yes_, Laurie. I don't know why you have always found it so hard to believe I love her. I love her! I do, with the breadth and depth of an ocean. And now I have not seen or heard of her for two months; it _hurts_, Laurie. Tell me how to stop this pain and I will do it."

"You were supposed to forget her, you sap-skull."

"I can't! So I wait and hope."

"Aye, you always were stupidly loyal; the fount of eternal chivalry surely."

"If loyalty is all I can give then so be it. I'll stay here and find her."

"And what about me, Jackie? If I asked you to come with me, sail to the ends of the earth and back again; you to keep us on a straight course and I to protect us from danger? Have you no loyalty, Jackie, no love at all for me?"

"Of course I do, but not–"

"Damn it, Jackie, I'm right here, living and breathing. Not some crazed mermaid, not some magic creature you didn't even credit the existence of 'til she addled your brains, so what do I have to _do_?"

"Laurie? Laurie, come on, calm down."

"I _love_ you."

Jack was almost getting used to Laurie broadsiding him, but not like this. Words escaped him. Laurie's eyes swam with frustrated tears and reflected starlight.

"I love you, Jackie," he whispered and kissed him.

His lips were chapped but warm and sweet, and he couldn't tell where one of them ended and the other began.

"What are you doing? Damn it, Laurie, what did you do that for?" He jumped on the nearest excuse. "If you're trying to distract me from Lorelai a bloody fine job you've done of–"

Laurie slapped him. Then looked mortified at his open hand and bunched it into a belated fist but didn't follow through with a punch. "Now see what you made me do. Lorelai has nothing, Jackie, nothing in the world nor heaven nor hell to do with me kissing you. That I did because I love you, like Merope loved her man, like stars love the night, and because I wanted to and because I'm leaving in the morning."

"Where the hell to? We're in the middle of the water!"

"When we dock, you dullard. I'm jumping ship."

"Of course! That makes it all so much better. And when did you come up with this _brilliant_ idea?"

"All of a minute ago."

"Aye, it bears the hallmarks of a fine, considered decision. Why, Laurie?"

"Because I have to."

"_Why?_"

"_Because_."

"That's no answer, Laurie. I know you're an addle-brained castoff, but even you– there are repercussions, you stupid idiot!"

"And a greater one if I stay. I love you too well, which I've always thought was a yellow-bellied shyster's excuse, but here I am using it anyway, because it's true. I love you too well to let you enter the world of trouble you'll be in if I stay."

"I wouldn't tell anyone. Nothing would happen so there'd be nothing even to tell."

"It took me three years to kiss you, Jackie, I wouldn't wait another three. Do you love me?"

Jack really hadn't thought another thing that night could stop his heart, make him scramble for speech.

"At a complete loss for words – and why should I have dreamt of more? For reasons past comprehension you're still under the siren's spell and I'll tell you, Jackie, 'tis vastly humiliating to be competing against a fish in the first place, but to _lose_..."

For a moment, Laurie looked to be considering some tender parting gesture, but he was still quite young. He punched Jack in the stomach instead.

"Fare thee well, Jackie. Be good enough for the both of us."


	4. Part Four

_Now would be the time to start playing the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack._

* * *

**xiii. Fifteen Years' Passage**

John would not have been pleased that his ship was being overrun by pirates in any case, but there was something particularly galling about being beaten by a girl pirate.

She stood upon the forecastle, silhouetted by the bright sun and the blue sky, wreathed by the smoke of the pistols she held in either hand. A sea breeze flew over the stern, pushing away the smoke and whipping long, ash blonde curls into a streaming banner. Grey eyes framed by extravagant lashes laughed at the carnage taking place on the deck of his ship. John found it all distastefully dramatic if not completely ridiculous. Of course the pirate didn't get her hands dirty; she let her crew do the hard work while she stood above them all primping and preening, so seemingly aloof. John gritted his teeth. There was not a man on board who did not know her for what she was, a common harlot, and in the midst of his fury there was little else he could cling to by way of comfort.

Behind him, John could hear one of his men muttering darkly, excuses and suspicions and something about Old Scratch hisself wandering the earth in mortal form to keep her protected for his work.

John maintained a silence so imposing that even in the chaos all around them of the men falling, fighting, and slowly surrendering _damn it,_ the man felt it and bit his up into the sunlight, John spied the tall, broad-chested black man guarding the stairs, keeping his pusillanimous mistress tucked up safe and sound.

"She may be the devil's whore," John said fiercely, "but she has no occult powers. Hold fast."

But the battle was lost; the fight was draining out of his men with their spilt blood. They were herded like lambs to slaughter into a tight circle surrounded by blades.

"Stand down!" came the call from the forecastle. "For you're out-numbered well and truly, and being only a weak woman, I have no stomach for slaughter.

"The whole-sale, merciless kind, that is – unless provoked," she added, lowering her gun at one of John's crew who wore a sneer as wide as the Pacific. "Try me, dog, and you will find out how very hard it is for curs like you to talk their way past Saint Peter."

She passed a deceptively mild survey over the rest of her prisoners as she descended to the main deck, the black man following close behind – overly protective, John thought. He met the pirate's eyes when they came to rest on him and he swore, in that moment, her whole being froze, suspended on a heartbeat. Like a cloud dragging quickly across the sun, her smile vanished then reappeared again more dazzling than ever.

"Sir, you would be the captain of this fine vessel, would you not?"

"I am."

She seemed amused at his stiff tone. "And would your name be too much to ask for, my lord?"

He frowned. "Yes, it would. I do not negotiate with pirates. Kill me or set us out on boats to find our way to possible rescue; either way, decide and do it quickly."

"You're playing with fire, my lord sir, going the right way to riling the person in control of your ship, crew, and life. Why, I once was owning a dog with twice the brains as ye have in yer little finger."

There was a significant pause as though she expected her words to mean something more to him than what they said.

"Davy Jones in a pretty pink pinafore, Jackie!"

She rushed at him, suffered an infinitesimal moment of hesitation, then punched him on the arm. Hard. "Jackie, you poxy blackguard, I should knock your teeth down your throat!"

He stared.

"Laurie?"

The blonde curls, eyelashes, mouth, hands, the slight figure of him, made so much more sense on a girl John wondered that he hadn't seen it before.

"Such hesitation! You cut me to the heart, Jackie, really you do." Her hands flew to her breast and her forehead, alighted for a moment, then flew off again as she laughed and chattered on.

"So you're a great, grand sea captain now – did I not say 'twas your destiny? – and these are your crew. Ah, boys, don't look so down-hearted; 'twas all over for you the moment we took out the mast and half your guns with it, you must have known it. Though what exactly you were doing with the greater part of your arsenal on the deck of all places, I'll be speaking to you about later, Jackie – did you learn next to nothing from me in all our years of being friends?

"Now, my darlings, being that you're Jackie's there'll be no killings. Your cargo of course is forfeit but we're all men of the world –more or less– and know how the game is played. We'll set you adrift on a frequented ship-route with provisions enough that you won't be needing to recourse to eating each other's legs before you're rescued."

John let the words wash over him as he steered through his memories, each one twisting, warping like water-logged wood drying in the sun. He was lost, a small craft on a violent sea. "What happened to you, Laurie?"

She tipped her head to one side with a look so familiar it wrung his heart. "Took up a career in perfidiousness and skulduggery, Jackie. Did right well by all accounts: I may not exactly be the scourge of the seven seas but I'm certainly one of their better pick-pockets. I have myself a grand ship, a fine crew, more booty than is good for a person, and the best first mate a captain could ask for." She flicked a smile at the man looming over her shoulder and as she returned to John something indefinable chased over her features. "And my very own private lair, Jackie, would that you could see it." And then that sense again of sunlight breaking through clouds as she grinned at the brilliance of her next thought. "But what am I talking about! You're my prisoner, aren't you? 'Tisn't like you can naysay me if I decide to take off with you. Kingston, we have enough room for Jackie, don't we?"

The tall black man looked at her and some wordless communication passed between them. He tucked a stray curl behind her ear, his thumb brushing the line of her jaw as he did so, but she jerked away from his touch with a faint blush staining her cheeks. John looked from one to the other and silently raged at the thought of how close a first mate and captain could become. Laura met his eye with a flash of bravado.

"Tell me, Jackie: how's your father's fortunes these days? A decent deal of my takings seem to be carrying the Ashbury-Stratton stamp; you must be doing him proud. And I wonder, how much would he be willing to give to see his darling boy returned home safe? I'm sorry to exploit a friendship, Jackie, really I am, but there's one's reputation and occupation to be thinking of. That's business," she added, though John thought the caveat was intended more for Kingston's benefit than his.

"And my crew will go free?" John had to ask.

"Aye, Jackie, free as gulls on a gusty day. What do you take me for?"

He had no idea what his answer would be.

-.-.-

**xiv. Pants on Fire**

"I'm sorry for the manacles, Jackie. Kingston thinks them necessary and I cannot convince him to the contrary, and to be fair it makes the crew more at ease. You understand, don't you?"

"I understand that there is no honour among thieves, so it is no wonder your Kingston finds trust a difficult concept."

"Jackie-boy," she wheedled, "don't be bitter because fates and my cannons were against you. It'll be just like old times. We'll talk and talk and the world will seem like there's only the two of us in it."

"We don't have old times, not now."

"Why, Captain Ashbury, that's simply untrue."

"You are a _liar_, Miss Patrick, a cheat, a thief, and a murderer."

Her eyes sang with sudden fury. "It's been fifteen years since last you saw me, John Ashbury. You have no idea who I am; you never knew me truly even then."

"I am well aware Laurel Patrick was entirely a shadow of my own imagining."

And just as swiftly the storm passed away. "Nay, Jackie-boy! Laurel Patrick is my father. 'Tis an old family name passed down from son to son, but I am all the sons of my father's house, aye and all the daughters too, so I could have only the amended version because," she gave him a grin that reminded John of why he had put up with the cock-sure kid in the first place, "Laurel is _not _a girl's name."


	5. Part Five

**xv. Half Turn to Go Yet Turning Stay**

The pirate's lair was to be found on an island hidden among a score of others and remarkable only for its enclosed lagoon, as though the land had reached out two arms to embrace a rough oval of sea and never let go. A sturdy but slapdash structure sprawled across the island's hill, and a brief gleam amidst the mess of tropical greenery alerted John to the ubiquitous presence of cannons.

The meal he was forced to share with a roomful of nautical lepers was degrading but at least the act of eating forced the issue of removing the cuffs from his wrists. The pirate then led him away, after another silent communication with her first mate that had her locking her jaw and tossing her hair like a thwarted adolescent. She took him to the end of the structure – for it could hardly be called anything so noble or permanent as a house – that he supposed commanded the best view over the ocean. The window opposite the door immediately affirmed his guess but the rest of the room left something to be desired. It was crowded, stuffed and adorned with bobbles and trinkets: canvas, leather, lace, and cotton strewn across every surface; a seal skin on the wall and tiger rug with head and all lounging on the floor; a pair of silver-filigreed pistols hung hastily by their finger-guards from the outstretched tailfin of a washstand in the shape of a mermaid; a tower of coins heaped haphazard on the flat head of one bedpost; golds, reds, purples, blue green and more gold colliding and merging. Everywhere a careless lushness that set his teeth on edge.

She leant against a copper-strapped sea chest and watched him survey the room. "'Tis comfortable enough for all the mess. I needed somewhere to put the clutter for I could not abide it aboard my ship."

"In another line of work, Miss Patrick, you would amass only what God saw fit to allot you and avoid such nuisances as where to store the possessions of others."

"Very good, Captain Ashbury. A fine job you're doing of keeping that silver spoon firmly out of sight. I s'pose I should also apologise for the meagre fare of your repast but it's just so _hard_ to find the makings of cucumber sandwiches in the middle of the ocean, your honour."

"I do not know of what you are speaking."

"Proper grammar? Aye, that'll bring me to my knees if nothing else will."

"I'm afraid, Miss Patrick–"

"You _picksome _milk maid!"

She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled his mouth down to hers, long black lashes sweeping sidelong across his cheek. Her kiss was the lift and rush of flight when sails caught a stiff breeze, the cacophony of gulls voices against the crash of waves, the high-strung tension of an anchor line fighting an eddying current, the salt tang of sea spray, and the sweetness of indigo evenings at anchor. Behind his closed eyelids, half-forgotten things swam, roiling like constellations in the cool dark sky. He could feel the struggle of her indrawn breath shuddering through his chest, they were so close.

She let him go and took a step back; tapped a finger to her lips, keeping her eyes on his. "I'd been wondering if you'd taste the same."

Giving her the satisfaction of playing her game was not an option, no matter how strong the stupid compulsion was to know if he did.

She waited then shrugged. "Well, at least I was shaking you enough that you no longer bear a more than passing resemblance to a mainbrace."

The memory dawned on him, washed through him taking some of the strain away. "Oh. Of course. I'd forgotten."

"Forgotten what?"

"Where you thought I kept my silver spoon."

Her smile was small but there. "Don't tell me no one else ever noticed it."

His was only fractionally wider. "If they did they were polite enough not to mention it."

"What, did nobody in your circles ever hear that sparing the rod spoils the child?"

"I turned out to be a fine upstanding member of the community – now, remind me how it is that you occupy yourself again?"

"There's no need to be worrying about a single spoon no more. I'm sore-wounded to say you've inherited the whole set of cutlery, Jackie, fish-forks and all."

"You're still a graceless brat, Laurie."

"I never was afraid of you."

"You should have been. I had to fight the urge to tip you over the side every day." He took a step forward to loom over her as he always had.

Hers was a derisive laugh. "You could have tried."

"If I'd tried I would have succeeded."

"Succeeded in gaining a black eye, broken nose and a shin splint, aye, I concur."

"Ah, yes. There was only one opponent in all of Creation with brawn and wiles enough to overpower Master P."

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "_Who_ ... no, wait, no, I know what you're going to–"

"The goat on Farquahar."

She whacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Jackie! Really, after all this time you needs must remind me of the creature? You never could get over that bloody goat. It was possessed by _demons_, probably, most likely."

Another memory pulled John up short.

_Have I ever lied to your knowing? About _important_ things, Jackie._

"Besides which, I was feeling decidedly under the weather as the night before _you_ had the hilarious notion to see how well I'd handle rum," she continued, one more assaulting his shoulder.

He caught her hand. "You did lie to me about important things, Laurie. Every minute of every single day we knew each other."

It took her less than a heartbeat to follow him. "I never did, Jackie." At the look he gave her she returned one of her own. "Well, you never did ask me, 'Laurel Patrick are you not in fact of the male persuasion?' did you then?"

"I didn't know the question needed asking, Laurie."

The sigh she sighed would never have left the mouth of the boy he knew. "Stop being so damn reasonable, Jackie. I don't regret it, not a moment of it. I can't. My years as Laurie were the best of my life; 'tis a sad, strange, weary fact, but fact it is." She nibbled at the nail of her middle finger on her left hand. "Can't believe you forgot about the spoon. I remember everything you ever said to me."

He reached out and tugged her ear. "Be fair, Laurie – most of the stuff you spouted was pure nonsense."

"But not all of it.

"No. Not all of it." He paused. Debated with himself. He wanted, needed to know "Laurie?"

"Jackie?"

"You said..." He swallowed painfully. "You said you loved me."

Laura gave him a sweeping, long-lashed look. "Aye, that I did."

There was a stone in the pit of his stomach. "Do you still?"

-.-.-

**xvi. When the Sea Sings**

Said Laurie to Lorelai, "What do you do when you fall in love, and you wish to go on straits unknown, further than the edge of the world, but your heart won't follow you?"

_You grieve. You mourn. Then you blast apart your memories and shore up your love and find what is further than the edge of the world for that is where you are meant to be._

"How long will my heart ache, and my eyes burn, and my soul cry like a lost pup?"

_For no time at all when measured against the swell of the tide and the call of the gulls, the men you will love and the ships you will command, and the endless endless freedom awaiting you._

-.-.-

**xvii. What Have I to Say to You**

"You'll always be the first friend of my heart, Jackie, but it's been so long. . ."

They watched each other; studied and tried to decipher the tiny flickers of expression.

_I missed you. A piece of me left with you. I look up from the wheel, see sunlight touch a coil of rope and remember that time, that place, when you and I. I know when I cross one of the paths we sailed together even when there are no landmarks, only the horizon and the sea. I never went back to the town where last we saw the last of each other, we parted, never._

Neither profited from the exercise.

He finally ground out, "Is Kingston your lover?"

Laura made a fair fist of appearing shocked, but her eyes betrayed her at the last. "That's not a question you should be asking of a lady."

"You're no lady, Laurie."

"As you say, Jackie, but I'm enough of one to be heartfelt grateful for Kingston. He's a prince among men and my protection; without him I would have been bruised, abused, and left for dead years since."

"Is that any surprise."

"Your meaning?"

"Given the company with whom you threw in your lot? Dammit, a _pirate_, Laurie?"

"What else would you have had me do?"

"You were a marvel at ballistics – do you remember the shot that took down _Neptune's Folly_? – any ship would have taken you and gladly. Merchant, or navy, or privateer; you might have had your choice!"

"Aye, and well I know it, as Laurel Patrick. And what would have happened, one year, two years, ten years, when finally I was discovered, and surely I would have been, as a female? A long drop and a short stop – the same fate I look forward to as pirate as it happens, and frankly the money and glory come in greater portions in my current occupation."

"Money and glory?"

"Aye, the same things I've always craved, in case you didn't notice, and now I have them so _huzzah huzzah!_ for that."

John strode to the window, rested his forehead against the cooling glass, tried to work his fingers out of the fists they had made. Laura's soft voice followed him.

"Have you any conception – any notion at all in that thick, upstanding-citizen skull of yours – how _hard_ it is? How exhausting it is to pretend every step and every breath? To be in constant fear for your life – not only from the sea, with that wild dame's multiplicitude of perils, but from your own crewmates whom you should be wholly entrusting with that selfsame life?"

"Then why come to sea at all? Why not stay home like any self-respecting female and–"

"Live in a glorious hovel; barefoot, pregnant, with four babes on my hips and a husband who drinks himself to death before he's five-and-thirty? Aye, who wouldn't give up the sea for such a fate! Remind me, Jackie, why didn't you?"

"The situation is not comparable and you know it– you know that I– you–"

"You're stuttering, my darling. Shall I take it as read that you meant to undermine my point by pointing the physical impossibility of your having bubbies?"

"Always an answer for everything with you, isn't it, Laurie."

"But of course, Jackie, it's why you love me."

"I don't love you!"

"You should! Think what partners we'd be." Her tone took on a pleading edge. "Jackie, what did you do with the heart I gave you?"

"Laurie, what are you talking about?"

He turned to her and she smiled a strangely wistful smile.

"I'm talking nonsense, like I always do, Jackie-boy. I'm talking dreams and wishes and things I've been done with many a year. You asked why I went to sea – it was for love. For all you don't think me a proper woman, is not that a pretty female answer: for love? A selkie prince asked me to marry him, and wisely I said no, but within a week I regretted my choice and took to the blue-briny deep in pursuit of him. I never did find him, for I found you instead. But you – well, there's no need for rehashing ancient history that's known to the both of us. And then, all unexpectedly, the sea took over my soul – I cannot not now leave it, Jackie, I cannot."

She sighed and slipped up to the window, stole an arm around his waist and laid her head against his chest. Laurie was warmth, as she always had been – John may have been deaf and blind to many things when they were young, but he knew that warmth truly.

"What are you doing?"

"You're repeating yourself – you said that before. You've made me melancholy, Jackie, and tired. So I will rest a little while, just here."

"Silly brat."

He led her to her bed, let her slip down among the pillows, stayed close when she refused to let him go.

"Will you humour me, Jackie, just once?" Her voice was little more than a breath.

"Of course, Laurie."

"Say that you love me. You don't have to mean it; I promise I won't believe you."

"It wouldn't work, Laura; you're a pirate."

"Say that again."

"We're moral and mortal enemies; it can't work."

"No, you widgeon, my name."

"Laura." He pulled her closer. Her hair smelled like the wind over the water. "Laura, do you love me?"

"Always," she whispered over his heart.

-.-.-

**xviii. Incline Thine Ear**

John woke in the middle of the night.

A shaft of pearly moonlight shone through the open window with curtain undrawn, but it fell on Laura's face not his. Sleep made the pirate a subject suitable for a Titian study, serene and beautiful. The quarters around them were dark and quiet, save the creak of rafters and walls settling, and the ever-present _shush_ of waves against the shore. Probably some nocturnal creature had cried out in the heat of the hunt before pouncing on its prey. Satisfied, Jack settled back on the bed, arranging Laura more comfortably on top of him. And then he heard it. Or heard it again.

A woman singing.

* * *

_Dear Miss MurtleYuts, if you did not see what I did there, and hence what very important plot point is just around the corner, then you are blind. And by the way you are a legend. Your very obedient etc., Clar._


	6. Part Six

**xix. The Enemy Shouteth**

"Lorelai? Lorelai!" His voice was violently loud in the quiet night.

_My John, it has been so long – so long, so many years. How I have wasted, wishing we would find one another once more. How cruel that witch has been._

He stumbled, the cool water of the lagoon slapping at his thighs, looked wildly left, right, searching.

"Lorelai!"

And there it was, the gold glimmer under the surface, the harbinger of his beloved. She rose from the waters, cradled in a shell woven from music and waves. He took one unsteady step towards her and stopped.

Her hair.

He felt sick looking at the short, shorn strands of what had once been her hair. At the rack, the ruin, the wanton destruction of what he had loved. Bile and anger stormed in his stomach. "_Who did this to you?_"

And the answer, from the shore. "Jackie."

He spun around. "How could you?"

"Jackie, it's not safe, don't be a fool."

"_You_," he spat, charged back through the breaking waves. "What did you do?"

"What's the –" She reached out to him but he grabbed her wrist wrenched it down.

"What did you _do_?"

Her jaw clenched. "Take your hands off me – _now_ – or I'll be removing them for you."

"What did you do to her hair?"

"Let go of my arm, you midden-eating bastard–"

"Tell me," he screamed.

"I hacked it off, Jackie, with _pleasure_!" she shouted back. "But she drowned one of my best men before I realised it was needful."

"How _could_ you?"

"How could I not, Jackie. Did you ever look at all; did you ever see it truly?"

"What, see _what_?"

"Her _hair_. O Laurie, her _beautiful _hair that captures the stars and holds a mirror to the universe, the _radiance_ of it, Laurie! You were a fine one for not believing in a thing you couldn't see, John Ashbury, but you never really saw what was right in front of your face! That sea-whore knots the limbs of dead men in her hair then trails the bottom of the ocean to bait wee luminous fishies then drags the whole rotting mass up to the surface to bait wee idiot men. _That_ is your radiance, Jackie, _those_ are your stars."

They were breathing hard, air crashing in and out of their lungs with painful intensity. His fingers tightened around her wrist then threw it away. She refused to back down, not even to acknowledge the pain.

John looked out to Lorelai, back to her. "This isn't a coincidence, is it? Her being here, your den here."

Laura's lips curved into something that wasn't a smile. "No. Did you not recognise Casus Belli?"

"You knew where she was." The realisation froze his soul. "When you kissed me and said you loved me, you _knew_."

Had he ever been so betrayed?

"I saved your life, Jackie. And you may sulk all you like but you'll not make me regret it."

He stepped towards her; put his hands upon her, sliding from waist to hips. Her breath caught in her throat. He felt the brine-roughened leather of her belt, the hilts thrust into it – because this dramatic, vain-glorious creature would _of course_ carry two – gripped one of the cutlasses and drew it.

"Draw," he said.

She laughed, almost.

"I will not kill an unarmed opponent, so draw."

"Go soak your head, you muppet..."

Placing the tip of the sword to her breastbone, he pressed until blood rose up to kiss the cold metal. Watching her eyes, he saw the first cracks race across her heart, and managed his own travesty of a smile.

Her anger soared and her cutlass flew to her hand. The stars wheeled around their heads as they circled each other, the gibbous moon watched from its seat on the horizon. Her swordsmanship had improved since the days of their abortive lessons on the deck of the _Islington_ though she tended towards flash and dazzle. They traded a dozen nicks and scratches; her speed near balancing out his greater reach and weight. When he attacked she countered but never pressed an offensive that sought more than to keep him on his toes. The feeling she was playing with him had him stepping back so they considered and circled each other again.

She held her sword lightly and smiled like a blade. The suggestion of laughter in her eyes lashed like a whip at his heartache and rage. He rushed her again, hammered at her defence; beat her back a step, then two. Their swords crossed, sparks flying, and held. He bore down on her. Metal screeched in agony. Her arm shook. She pretended to grin.

"Big brawny man, aren't you, Jackie? Such a show of strength I'm all a-flutter," she panted. "My knees just go weak when you press your suit on an opponent half your size–"

"Shut it, Laurie."

He drove her to her knees with bone-juddering force, pinned her with the point of his sword against her throat. Her arms dropped by her sides to the sand. Those laughing grey eyes were covered by trembling lashes and opened again to reveal something terribly vulnerable swimming in their depths.

"Jackie..." Whatever she tried to say was lost to him as her voice faded to a whisper.

John looked down at Laura. Laurie. Laurie kneeling in front of him, all the bravado beaten out of her – he didn't want that, that wasn't what he wanted.

She tried to say something again but he still couldn't hear. He leant down, careful of the edge, of her neck.

And got a fistful of sand to the face.

"You bitch, you blinded me!"

As he stumbled backwards, she kicked the sword out of his hand. "Neptune love you, Jackie, I'm a _pirate_ – 'tisn't in my nature to play fair."

He scrubbed at his eyes. Each grain scratched like a thorn, but he cleared enough of the grit that he could see. She stood a few feet away, one hand rubbing at her throat where it had been nicked. Her sword was by her side but held in readiness of another attack.

"Come on, Laurie, what are you waiting for?"

"I'm not waiting for nothing. Well and I'm sure you shouldn't be allowed to play with sharp objects, Jackie. You could have hurt me." The smear of blood on her fingers had her wrinkling her nose.

Her nonchalance, her pretence that they were such friends with not a shadow of remorse for a single thing she had done to him, bit deep. He wanted to hurt as he hurt, wound as he was wounded – it was a vicious refrain pounding in his blood – he wanted to destroy her.

He spat, "This is it so kill me already."

"_What_?"

"Do it – heart, throat, stomach, it hardly matters now."

"I can't–" Her voice splintered and she tried again. "I won't be the death of you, Jackie."

"Devil take you, Laurie, you've got to finish what you start!"

"I didn't start it, _you_ did. _You_ attacked _me_, I'm just defending myself!"

"Laurie. _Laura_. Shall we try to be rational about this?"

"Don't talk to me like that."

"Tell me, Laura, what did you expect would be the outcome of this interlude?"

"Stop it, Jackie!"

"Did you think," he asked, each word dropping like a stone, incredulous, "that I would throw my arms around your neck, swear eternal love, and we'd sail off into the sunset?"

"Jackie, _don't_."

"Is that what you thought? As you so succinctly put it: you're a pirate, Laura. I cannot with a clear conscience leave you be. Either you kill me or I take you into His Majesty's custody."

"Damn it, we're friends–"

"Fifteen years ago, and since then you've become a pillaging, thieving murderer."

"I am not, I am nothing like _her_ – I never killed in cold blood, only the heat of battle. Is not her continuing existence proof enough of that? If anyone deserved death 'tis she."

Ice sang furiously through his veins. "That's not really the point, is it, Laura? The point is you've wilfully deluded yourself. What were the excuses you made up? Oh but he thought I was a boy, oh but he's sick with jealousy for Kingston and his pride is up, oh but there's so many, many reasons why Jackie won't say it but he does love me, he _does_! Laura, Laura, Laura." He shook his head. "Even were you not a peasant with dirt engrained in your skin no matter how much salt water you splash about, even did you not pursue the foulest profession on earth –"

"Please, Jackie."

"Laura, you're barely a woman. Did you really think I could . . . ?"

Though he didn't hold a blade, he felt it sink in to the hilt. And then he twisted it.

"I've never said I loved you. Not even when you _begged_."

There was not a sound.

_My love, my love, how right you are, how bright you are. Come to me. Leave her, come to me_, sang Lorelai to John.

"I come."

Laura thought for a moment to let him go. Standing on the sand with her heart aching and bleeding inside her, battered and bruised as she hadn't been for ten years, in more pain than she had felt in her lifetime, she thought for a moment about washing her hands of him, about allowing him his heart's desire. Were there not great grand songs of how righteous are those who set the people they love free?

Shouldn't she be noble?

To hell with that, she was a pirate. And before she ever was pirate she damn well was a peasant, and when had Jackie so addled her brains as to make her care for such a paltry thing as nobility?

"No!" she yelled, dashing into the waves, leaping and landing two hands on the top of John's head to shove him under the water. "No no no no _no_. You can't have him. And what kind of prize is he anyway? A boy you bewitched when he was fifteen and you nought but a pup yourself? That's no trophy for you, there's no glory in that."

John had gained his feet and was at Laura's side. She hooked a foot around his ankle and towed him back under.

"But me now. The one who tricked and trapped you, who's never been fooled by your illusion and your glamour? I'm the one you're wanting. I took your pretty hair and burnt it to a crisp. And then there's the matter of pissing off your princely kin and taking what's his; he's the one that talked you into the lagoon in the first place, got a lot to answer for he does indeed. Me for the boy-o. I mean to say that's not even a fair deal, the advantage is all to you."

Lorelai licked her lips. _We have an accord._

John shook water out of his ears in time to hear the words, but there was something wrong. He felt like Little Red Riding Hood, _Oh, grandmother, what big teeth you have_. It must have been some trick of the moonlight for surely Lorelai's eyes had never been so flat and hard. And her arms looked so sinewy and strong as they reached for Laura's throat. Lorelai laughed like the crackle of sea foam, but her teeth had never been sharp before. His temples throbbed with a blinding headache.

Something was wrong.

Before he could move towards them, Laura spat at the face in front of her and plunged her cutlass deep into the siren's belly, ripping at fat and flesh and gizzards as it went clean through, and again on the outward journey. A tearing, burning pain pierced John's head like a red-hot poker. His eyes screamed as scales were ripped from them. He cried out and staggered forward, slapping a hand to the wound in Lorelai's stomach as though shoving the blood back in would take the agony away.

"Jackie?"

He tried to look at her but it _hurt_. His stomach twisted in a knot and heaved. He was sure he must be weeping blood. She seemed different, somehow, reaching out to him, with the moonlight and stars reflecting off the water, and her expression – he couldn't tell what it was, it hurt to think too.

Her shoulders jerked in a shrug. "I'd die for you, Jackie, I would, but breathing's got to be a habit you see."

She waited for him to say something, hand hovering halfway to his cheek. The silence stretched so long.

"Jackie, do you ... can you ... please, Jackie, they say when a witch dies so does her magic with her?"

His gaze sank as though weighted with iron to the blue-green blood on his hands, at the body in his arms. He touched gentle shaking fingers to the mermaid's eyelids to close them, and didn't see Laura's heart finally irrevocably break. He couldn't force his sluggish pain-seared mind to work, there was too much too fast.

Then through the liver-red haze, he heard a voice from the shore, the shore again. It was smooth and enchanting, harmonious and captivating. It was the song of the sea, of the deep ... his own personal freedom in a wave of high, clear notes. No. No, not that wasn't it. What had he said, _she _said, so long ago ... a similar same song, only his freedom was protection. That voice.

_And what will you now, Laura Patrick?_

* * *

_And there endeth the Rapunzel part of the tale - don't tell me you forgot this was a Rapunzel story? There's two more parts to go and they'll be coming fairly quickly so keep an eye out._


	7. Part Seven

**xx. Kingston, Jamaica**

Laura woke to trails of fire blazing down the side of her face as gentle fingers examined the bruises there.

She tried to shift away but only managed to rock her head to one side and set bells ringing in her ears. His voice came to her, soothing as a lullaby, _Laura Patrick, what did they do to you?_

"Oh. It's you." She felt then the wavelets licking at her fingertips, the numbing clasp of night-cool water around her thighs. "You better shove off, your Highness; I haven't the strength to drag you out if the low tide catches you this time." It hurt to speak – it was agony to speak – but if she stopped talking she'd stop living.

_Who did this to you?_

"Couple of mast-hugging cockswains who thought I'd be easy – _ha._" Her laugh was more of a cough and she tasted blood. "Showed them, didn't I?"

His fingers whispered over her hair then down her arm and dove into the waves. He plucked something from the water and placed it to her lips.

_Take, eat._

Her eyes burned with frustration and humiliation. "I can't chew it; my teeth are loose."

He fed it to her, as a mother bird does its chick, and she felt small eddies of strength spiral through her body.

"We were square and you've gone and tipped the scales again. Why'd you have to do that? I don't like being in debt."

_I still want you. I want your pretty, beating heart. It is so cold in the deep water._

A number of implications to those words made themselves known to the fuzzy nether-hither-something regions of her brain and she answered as cagily as she could, "Not much I can do about that; 'fraid I don't know where my heart is at the present moment."

_That is careless of you._

"Aye, but that's the way I was made and the leopard does not change his spots. I threw it at the feet of a boy and neither one of us had a care to pick it up again so who knows where it might be now."

_Even though you saved his life._

"Yes. Well. There were extenuating circumstances that made matters a _wee _mite more complicated than that."

_I will give you ten years to find it._

"What does that entail, pray tell?"

_You have ten years to find your heart and become my wife, or not and die for a body cannot live without a heart. And I will give you ten years of my life because I do not like these,_ his fingers alighted once again on her face, and the pain wasn't as intense but still had Laura considering the merits of throwing up, _on what is mine._

"And what if I don't like the sound of death _or_ living for the rest of forever in the bosom of the ocean?"

_Your boy might have kept your heart to treasure._

She hacked another laugh to death in her throat. "Well and I'm sure there must be many new and interesting sights to be seen at the bottom of the deep blue sea and I might make myself a good life there. I will agree to your terms; we have an accord, your Highness . . . and that'll never do. You need a name if you're to be staying."

_What is this place called?_

It took a moment to remember. "Kingston."

_Then that shall be my name._

Laura snorted. "More typical that wet in water but I s'pose it'll keep you from undue attention."

-.-.-

**xxi. The Voice from the Shore**

_So, Laura Patrick, _he sang. _Where is your heart?_

_

* * *

_

_Aye, the plot thickens very much upon us. Did I say two parts to go? _Now_ we've two parts to go._


	8. Part Eight

**xxii. Love**

"Go blow a starfish, Kingston, I have a month left."

_You are no longer captain; you will address me by my title._

"I damn well am still captain, _your highness_, for twenty-seven days and I'll not be robbed of them."

_You broke a pact. _The selkie took one step forward and a wave raced up the sand to nuzzle his ankle. _Your word is no longer binding._

Laura began to shake and she swore under her breath.

He bent to stroke the wave like a cat. _I am sick to death of the arid air. Now is the hour I claim my recompense._

She jerked backwards, fell into John. She steadied herself with one hand against his chest for a moment until she realised what she was doing and pushed away again. But the moment was as effective as ice-cold spray for dousing the pain and confusion in his mind.

"Laurie, your hands are freezing." He grabbed at them, held them between his own hoping to turn the tide.

She tried to tug out of his grasp. "Let me go. I won't have you touching me." Her teeth chattered as she talked.

John looked from Laura to the shore and back to her once more. "What have you done now, Laurie?"

"'Tis naught to do with you, John Ashbury. Disappear – go on and take your beloved fish and get the hell away from me."

"Once you've stopped being so cold; it isn't right. What's going on?"

The selkie placed one foot in the lagoon's water and a sigh like a breaking wave crashed from his mouth. _We had an agreement, Laura Patrick and I, and now she is mine and we will return to the sea anon. She will keep me warm in the depths._

As her teeth were already rattling there didn't seem much point in shaking her but oh John was tempted. "It's the devil's own scrape you're in now, Laurie. What possessed you?"

"Bruised, abused, and left for dead, Ashbury; there wasn't much else I could do."

He tried to think. He didn't know what to call the selkie so he settled for an imperious glare. "What were the terms?"

The punch caught him in the face like a bag full of ice. "_What do you care_?" she hissed.

"How many times have you saved my life, Laurie?"

"I'll _none_ of your gratitude. I've never asked for it and I will not take it, you son of a–"

"Don't insult my mother, Laurie, it's not becoming–"

"_Stop it_. Don't act like we're friends; there is nothing between us. You mean nothing to me."

"All those years of practice, Laurie, you'd really think you'd be a better liar." Her eyes filled and he was instantly contrite. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Rot in hell."

_Come, Laura Patrick, to the cold, quiet depths with me._ The prince was years older than Lorelai.

_Where he will not ever be able to hurt you again. _Centuries craftier.

_Entrust your broken heart to me. I can numb the pain._

It cut John to the quick that she didn't even struggle, didn't offer any smart remark, simply turned towards the strong brown arms waiting for her without a sound. He didn't know what to do but he couldn't let her go.

And then it came to him, "Her heart." Yes, her heart, that was it. "You can't have it. It's mine."

Words had never felt so right and true.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "This is no time to be letting your loyalty get the better of you. Please, I'm _tired_."

"You said 'always'. Your heart is mine always; I hold you to your promise."

"Well and we've just seen how saintly I am in keeping my word."

"That's true. And you said you wouldn't wait another three years to kiss me again but then you left it fifteen, so who knows why I still trust you."

She bit back a scream. "Just let me go, Jackie!"

"I won't be the death of you, Laurie."

"I don't give a damn about your conscience or your nobleness or your bloody middle-class merchant morals. This is about _me_, my deal with the devil for right or wrong – it has nothing whatever to do with you, there is no guilt to be hanging over your head, no dashing derring-do to be done, so bugger off, Jackie. Damn it, I never asked or expected anything from you, especially not fool-hardy declarations because your fine bloody principals got pricked the wrong way. There is no duel to be fought here, _my lord_, no damsel in distress – let me alone!"

He didn't know what else to say. "I love you."

"Don't _lie_! Not about important things, not now."

"I'm not lying, Laurie. Laura, Laurie, damn."

"You had a thousand chances to say it before and did not take a single one. And now _oh miraculously_! you find yourself awash with tender feeling? May God forgive you, Jackie, for I never will."

"You stubborn-headed widgeon."

He grabbed her and dragged her back against his chest pinning her arms to her sides with his own. She tried to kick him and he pinched her in return. They fought a vicious struggle until she decided dignity was the better part of valour and froze like the statue of some glorious, vengeful goddess. Her hair smelt nice and John was convinced she had exactly the right amount of it even though it was sort of getting in the way. He resisted the urge to kiss to the bare curve of her neck.

"You, Laura Patrick, have a habit of turning my life upside down in a matter of minutes and expecting me to be overjoyed at the prospect. No," he clamped a hand over her mouth, "you also talk too much, in certain situations, so right now you just need not to talk until I'm finished with my piece."

She wrenched her head sideways. "Your hands taste of fish blood."

"Then stay quiet of your own accord. Please."

He waited for a moment to see if she would. She was still so cold that her breath shivered from between her lips and he held her tighter.

"There's a fundamental difference between us, Laurie, and that's fine, it's perfect, I wouldn't wish you any other way. But you dash madly at the world, you open your mouth and words fly out like birds, and that's not the way I'm made. I plot and I plan and I think things through – it took Lorelai two years to convince me to fall overboard, but how much time have you ever given me? When first you kissed me, it was less than, what, five minutes before you decided I was a lost cause and ran? And then again last night, when I was still struggling that my truest friend was not who I thought he was and yet she was still. And now, when I've found out you've lied to me _again_, betrayed my trust _again_, and you wanting me to make life-changing decisions when my head's on fire.

"I love you, Laurie. I've loved you a long time; you've just never given me the time to say it – the chance, yes, but not the time."

Tears etched their way down her cheeks. "You shouldn't say things you don't mean."

So he gave her more. "I love that your eyes laugh. I love that you're brave enough to take on the world. I love that an answer's always on the tip of your tongue. I love that you'd set your pants on fire for the sake of your traditions. I love the way your hands are always warm when they reach for me. I love the way you melt in my arms when you're not hating the fact that you love me. I love that you don't need stars, or songs. I love that you're touchy and proud in everything but your love for in your love you're prodigal. And yet I don't love any one thing so much as I love all of them together because they make up you, Laura. Won't you trust me with your heart? I'll treasure it always, Laurie."

Slowly, so slowly, he felt her lean back against him; letting his warmth seep into her body until she was burning and whole.

"Yes, Jackie."


	9. Part Nine

**xxiii. The End **

There wasn't a great, earth-shattering conclusion betwixt John and Kingston, for Laurie had found her heart in possession of another and the selkie was a prince, and princes do not break their word. And to tell truth, John was relieved because between the sleepless night and the duel he'd already fought he wasn't actually sure if he could have acquitted himself with distinction against a mythical creature. Not that there was any need to tell Laurie that.

Besides which he couldn't have told her because his lips were otherwise engaged, but they did have to breathe sometime. Her grey eyes were satisfied, a little fierce, and awash with gold in the first hint of dawn. The sky, he realised, had been slowly lightening, and now the top edge of the sun had burnt a hole in the horizon.

"It'll have to do," he shrugged and curled one hand around the nape of her neck to pull her closer.

"And what is it you think you're doing?"

"Throwing my arms around your neck and swearing eternal love so we can sail off into the sunrise."

He smiled at her and bent his head to kiss her again but she was not to be so easily impressed.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well, are you going to do it or no?"

"I've already saved your life, what more do you want?"

"I've saved yours a dozen times over, 'tis not so hard a matter to accomplish."

"Were you not even listening to what I said? It was pretty damn near poetry some of it."

"You said it under duress; I'm not sure I believe you."

"You are a contrary and frustrating creature, Laurie."

Laura developed a sudden interest in the top button of his shirt and her left thumb nail slipped between her teeth. "You broke my heart, Jackie, ground the pieces beneath your heel and spat on it for good measure."

He took her hand from her mouth to hold it against his heart and rested his forehead against hers. "I know; I meant to, and I'm sorry. It's the risk that comes with loving your best friend – they know your thoughts and your secrets and exactly what will hurt you most. But I won't do it again, I swear. I'd cut out my own heart before I hurt you again."

"That's a rash and foolish promise to be making, Jackie, when you must know I'd beat you black and blue before I let you harm the heart I love best in all the world." With a finger, she inscribed a cross over said heart. "And I won't lie to you again. Well, to be honest, I will always spin tales for that's the way my tongue works best, but I won't lie to you about important things, not ever again; that I swear to you, Jackie."

"Say you love me, Laurie."

"You love me, Laurie."

"Brat."

"I love you, Jackie, like Merope loved her man, like stars love the night, like salt loves the sea, and wind loves the sails. I love you like poetry loves music, and knights love princesses, and grass loves green. I love you like the traveller loves the first step of a journey and their own warm bed at last. You never did answer me before, Jackie, so say now. Will you come with me, sail to the ends of the earth and back again, you to keep us on a straight course and I to protect us from danger?"

He raised her hands to his lips, first one then the other.

"No. I'll go further."

-.-.-

**xxiv. Beginnings**

The breeze was fresh; plucking at sails and lines like a new-begun harpist with more enthusiasm than skill. The ship was light enough to jump and shudder as it scudded across the rolling surface of the sea. Jack drummed a complex little tattoo on the wheel to stop himself throwing his arms in the air and whooping as if he did he would quite simply soar. Pure, unadulterated joy flooded his blood. He cast a glance at the figure beside him who was, by his estimation, unnaturally still and quiet in the circumstances.

Laurie was gazing out over the ocean and, as if hearing his thoughts, said in a voice so contemplative it boded no good for the amount of sense that was to come, "You know, I've been of the thinking . . . 'Lorelai'? The thieving little sea-cow stole my name."

"Think straight, Laurie. Of course she didn't."

"What, a fish in the tropics with a Germanic handle? She didn't come up with it herself, and it's close enough to Laurie to make a person suspicious."

"Laurie."

"She must've sensed from the start that you were more than common attached to me and thought to make you more receptive to her through a similar name."

"I will tip you over the side in a minute, I swear."

She grinned that grin of hers. "Oh, I'm just a-quivering in my boots, Jackie, truly I am."

* * *

_Would you look at that, finished and all. Thanks to everyone who's come along for the ride. And special thanks to Faylinn, for the idea in the first place and graciously waiting a year rather than a month to see her prompt come to fruition; to Murtle Yuts who is entirely responsible for the events of the last two chapters, so you may thank or blame her as you see fit; and Slippy McShodster, I don't know, I mean I could have _tried_ to do it without you but just imagine what kind of mess that would have been. _


End file.
